AL Murray knows Britain’s deepening economic crisis is no joke – but the comic still hopes to wring some humour out of the financial meltdown.

Like all skilled stand-up artists he’s acutely aware of the fine line between comedy and tragedy, and he believes people use laughter to lift their spirits even in dire situations.

With a new TV sketch show just starting, he’s most famed for Al Murray’s Happy Hour, where he plays an pontificating pub landlord. Now he’s making that character centre stage on his Beautiful British Tour, which takes in Llandudno.

He reckons audiences love the landlord because he’s a universal figure.

"Everyone can relate to him, if only because he spills beer and spouts garbage, everyone knows someone like that!"

A key theme to the show will be the landlord giving his take on Broken Britain, asking who broke it and what are we going to do to fix it?

Al’s razor-sharp wit will be on top form as his character analyses the recession.

He said: "The Landlord will be reflecting people’s anger about the financial crisis caused by a bunch of greedy bankers. People are genuinely furious. They’ve lost our money, and now we’re having to use our money to bail them out. At the end, the Landlord applies his five golden rules to mend Britain. What are they? You’ll have to come and see the show!"

The character will also be fulminating about religion, and various society ills, including youth crime.

"Most kids are really nice – it’s absurd to think they’re all going to knife you!," said Al. "But the Landlord comes up with this catchphrase – ‘is that what Churchill died for?’ People go, ‘yeah!,’ and then realise he’s talking complete nonsense. In fact, Churchill died peacefully of old age!"

He’s relishing his return to the live stage after making three series of his award-winning TV chat show. "There’s nothing like the buzz you get from a live audience. If you’re doing 53 gigs in a row, you can constantly fine-tune stuff, be spontaneous. Improvisation means every night is different. You can go off on a tangent with an audience-member without having an autocue saying ‘get on with it’.